UK officials greased Lockerbie bomber's release, report finds

[This is the headline over an article just published on the msnbc.com website based on an advance copy of the report to be issued today by US Senators Menendez, Lautenberg, Schumer and Gillibrand. It reads in part:]

Intense political pressures and "commercial warfare" waged by the regime of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi led to last year’s release of the "unrepentant terrorist" who blew up Pam Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, according to a new report prepared by four US senators.

The report is being released Tuesday, 22 years to the day after a terrorist bomb exploded aboard the Pan Am airliner, killing 270 people — including 189 Americans — in one of the deadliest acts of domestic terrorism prior to 9/11.

An advance copy of the report – titled Justice Undone: The Release of the Lockerbie Bomber — was provided to NBC News.

The report finds that senior officials under former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown quietly and repeatedly pressured Scottish authorities to release Abdel Baset Ali al-al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence officer convicted of the bombing.

They did so in order to protect British business interests in Libya, including a $900 million BP oil deal that the Libyans had threatened to cut off, as well as a $165 million arms sale with a British defense firm that was signed the same month al-Megrahi was freed from prison, the report states.

“This was a case in which commercial and economic considerations trumped the message of our global fight against terrorism,” said Sen Bob Menendez, D-NJ, one of the four senators, who commissioned the report by a Senate investigator.

"God forbid there should be another terrorist attack. We have to make it impossible that anything like this injustice takes place again," he added.

The report also concludes that, in releasing Megrahi last year on the grounds that he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and had only three months to live, Scottish authorities relied on a "false" and "flawed" medical prognosis that was possibly influenced by a doctor hired by the Libyan government. (Although there were recent reports that Megrahi was in a coma, that account has been disputed. As the Senate report notes, he remains alive, reportedly living in a luxury villa in Tripoli.)

The Senate report calls for a renewed investigation into Megrahi’s release by the State Department and a public apology by both the British and Scottish governments.
That request was rejected this week by both British and Scottish officials. "We totally reject their false interpretation," a Scottish government spokesperson said in an emailed response to NBC News. The decision to release Megrahi "was not based on political, economic or diplomatic considerations, but on the precepts of Scots law and nothing else."

[For those with a strong stomach, the full report by the four senators can be read here.

There is now a report on the Telegraph website which can be read here.]

The only US newspaper to acknowledge that doubters exist?

While some of the family members of Britons who were killed in the Lockerbie bombing supported Mr Megrahi’s release, in part because of lingering doubts about his guilt, the families of several American victims were dismayed by the decision. The fact that Mr Megrahi has not yet died from his illness nearly a year after his release was the subject of several recent reports on both sides of the Atlantic. One doctor who examined him before his release told London’s Sunday Times this month, “There was always a chance he could live for 10 years, 20 years.”

On Monday, Senator Lautenberg and three Democratic colleagues asked the State Department to press British authorities to open their own investigation into the release of Mr Megrahi, The Associated Press reported.

A spokesman for the State Department, PJ Crowley, said on Monday, “There was an expectation from last August that Mr. Megrahi had only a few months to live. We’ve been on the Megrahi watch since that time.” He added, “Every day that he lives as a free man, we think is an affront to the families of and victims of Pan Am 103.”

[From a post on The New York Times's news blog, The Lede by the blog's editor, Robert Mackey.]

US team to discuss Megrahi release

[This is the headline over a report just issued by The Press Association news agency. It reads in part:]

US senators' interest in the Lockerbie bomber's release has "waxed and waned", a spokesman for First Minister Alex Salmond said ahead of a meeting on the issue.

Justice officials from the Scottish Government will hold talks in Edinburgh with representatives of a US Senate committee investigating the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi last year. (...)

The US politicians want to investigate concerns that the bomber's release was linked to an oil deal - a suggestion strongly denied by all parties involved.

A spokesman for Mr Salmond said: "It was the First Minister who revealed to the world that the UK Government and the Libyan Government were planning or negotiating a prisoner transfer agreement clearly with the specific purpose of Al Megrahi being transferred to Libya. We've looked at all the records and asked the senators for them to furnish us with any public comment they issued at that time - there was no public comment.

"Senator Menendez and his colleagues' interest in the matter certainly seems to have waxed and waned. It seemed to be non-existent at the time when it was revealed to the world there was this 'deal in the desert'."

The UK Government has rejected requests to meet with US officials. One is a staff member of committee chairman Sen Menendez and another is an official of the committee.

[The following is an excerpt from a report on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm:]

Neither MacAskill or Salmond are scheduled to meet with the team, representing Senator Robert Menendez. However it has not been revealed which "justice officials" they will meet with, or what role those officials may have played in the release of Megrahi or the aborted appeal process.

US Senators Robert Menendez, Kirstin Gillibrand, Frank Lautenberg and Charles Schumer have so far failed to respond to an invitation to back an international petition calling for a full review of the entire circumstances of the Pan Am 103 event and its judicial aftermath.

[A similar report on the BBC News website can be read here and Newsnet Sotland's treatment can be read here.]

Senators call on Britain to probe release of Lockerbie bomber, who has outlived prognosis

[This is the headline over an Associated Press report in the Los Angeles Times of 7 July 2010. It reads as follows:]

Four US senators are calling on Britain to investigate the circumstances of last year's release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie airliner bombing.

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was released from a Scottish prison in September because a doctor said the cancer-stricken man had only three months to live. However, the doctor later said al-Megrahi could live for another decade.

Al-Megrahi had served eight years of a life sentence for the Dec 21, 1988, bombing of the Pan Am Flight 103 as it flew from London to New York.

Democrats Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer of New York and Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey requested the investigation Wednesday in a letter to the UK's ambassador to the US.

[The reply by the UK ambassador, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, to Senator Gillibrand can be read here. The reply to the senators from the Scottish Government Counsellor, North America, can be read here.

Many other organs of the media have since picked up the story, among them BBC News and STV News.]

Lockerbie Appeal : Making Haste Slowly

Here, reproduced with his permission, is the text of an e-mail sent earlier today by Patrick Haseldine to Professor Hans Köchler and myself:

Today I extracted from the FCO's Libya website (http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-the-fco/country-profiles/middle-east-north-africa/libya?profile=intRelations&pg=4) the following section related to the Lockerbie bombing:
"The Lockerbie trial began on 3 May 2000. On 31 January 2001 Al-Megrahi was found guilty and Fhimah not proven. Al-Megrahi subsequently appealed against his conviction. His appeal was refused on 14 March 2002.

On 23 September 2003 Al-Megrahi applied to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission for his conviction to be reviewed. On 28 June 2007 the Commission referred his case back to the High Court, allowing him to appeal against his conviction for a second time.

Trilateral talks began on 13 February 2001 to discuss how Libya could meet the Security Council’s remaining requirements. As a result of these talks, in August 2003 the UK tabled a resolution recommending that the Security Council lift UN sanctions. That resolution was passed by the Security Council on 12 September 2003."

On 10 July 2008 Prof. Black e-mailed the FCO pointing out that the verdict on Fhimah was in fact not guilty but the error has not yet been corrected (see Lockerbie verdict posted on Prof. Koechler's website http://i-p-o.org/Lockerbie_Verdict-31Jan2001.htm).

As regards the delay of over a year in arranging Mr Megrahi's second appeal against his conviction for the Lockerbie bombing, Prof. Black wrote an article on 17 July 2008 entitled 'Justice Delayed...', posing these two questions:
"Why has no date yet been fixed for the hearing of the appeal? Why does it now seem impossible that the appeal can be heard and a judgement delivered by the twentieth anniversary of the disaster on 21 December 2008?" (see http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/07/justice-delayed.html)

US and British diplomats (as I used to be) would probably deny that there has been a delay. Rather, they would euphemistically say it is a case of making haste slowly. I offer three reasons that might be seen, from an American perspective, to justify maintaining the slow progress in having Mr Megrahi's wrongful conviction overturned:
1. The Lockerbie bombing took place during the Reagan/Bush Snr interregnum. President Bush Jr is unlikely to allow the case to unravel and the convicted Pan Am Flight 103 bomber to be acquitted before the new president gets sworn in next January.

2. PA103 relatives and US politicians (eg Senators Hillary Clinton and Frank Lautenberg) insist that Libya should pay a further $540 million in compensation for the Lockerbie bombing (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103#Compensation_from_Libya).

3. Lifting of UN Security Council sanctions against Libya hinged upon the payment of compensation for UTA772 as well as PA103 (see http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/sc7868.doc.htm and http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2008/03/libyas-lockerbie-compensation-proposal.html) The US will doubtless want Libya to pay some or all of the $6 billion compensation for the UTA772 bombing before Mr Megrahi's appeal can be heard.

And finally here is a question from me: since the twentieth anniversary of the PA103 disaster is on 21 December 2008, will a future criminal prosecution (perhaps of apartheid South Africa) in respect of the Lockerbie bombing be ruled out by the 20-year statute of limitations?

[Note by RB: On one issue I can reassure Mr Haseldine. There is no statute of limitations applicable to common law crimes like murder in Scotland.]

Lockerbie trial-related documents classified by US government

[What follows is the text of a report published by USA Today on this date in 1999. It no longer appears on the magazine’s website but can still be found here on The Pan Am 103 Crash Website:]

The Clinton administration has classified two documents related to an upcoming trial in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, intensifying concern among some victims' relatives about how thorough the prosecution will be. ''These are documents that need to be released,'' says Rosemary Wolfe of Alexandria, Va. Her stepdaughter, Miriam, 20, was one of 189 Americans killed when the Boeing 747 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, Dec 21, 1988.

The documents are a letter and the annex to the letter by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Sent to Gadhafi in February to persuade him to turn over two suspects for prosecution, they assured the Libyan leader that the trial was not intended to ''undermine'' the Libyan regime, according to US officials who have seen the text. The annex also promised that if convicted, the two Libyan intelligence agents -- Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah -- would not be questioned about other acts of the Libyan government.

State Department and White House officials say the assurances were necessary to persuade Gadhafi to cooperate and that no secret deals were struck. The trial, which begins in May in the Netherlands, will be held before Scottish judges who are not legally bound by the Annan letter or any other private assurances to Gadhafi. ''We've always said the evidence has to lead where it will lead,'' says Philip Reeker, a State Department spokesman.

Other US officials, however, say Gadhafi would never have turned over the two men if he believed that they would implicate him or Libyans close to him. Relatives of the suspects are being held in Libya, essentially as hostages, the officials say, inhibiting the defendants from testifying fully. A half-dozen alleged co-conspirators also have ''passed away under various circumstances,'' according to a US official who asked not to be named. Wolfe and other relatives of victims have been read only portions of the documents by State Department and UN officials.

On Oct 12, Cliff Kincaid, president of America's Survival, a conservative, anti-UN group, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the documents. It was denied on Dec 15 by Margaret Grafeld, director of the State Department's Office of Information Resources Management Programs and Services. Grafeld's letter, a copy of which was made available to USA Today, said the documents were classified ''in the interest of national defense or foreign relations.'' Kincaid says he will appeal.

The decision to classify the documents has intensified anger among some relatives of the victims. ''If these documents were classified all along, why were we read portions?'' Wolfe asks. She plans a separate Freedom of Information Act request. Sens Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ, and Robert Torricelli, D-NJ, and Rep Benjamin Gilman, R-NY, also have written Secretary of State Madeleine Albright seeking release of the documents. They have been turned down.

State Department officials say they cannot release the items because they are UN documents. Fred Eckhard, Annan's spokesman, says they are private correspondence ''on a highly sensitive subject. How can you do diplomacy if you go making such things public?'' Some of the assurances to Gadhafi were negotiated by South Africa's former president Nelson Mandela and Saudi envoy to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.

Many US officials regard the complicated diplomacy leading to the trial -- including seven-year UN sanctions that were suspended when the suspects were turned over in April -- as a victory that has gotten Libya out of the terrorism business. Since turning over the two suspects, Gadhafi has expelled the Abu Nidal terrorist group and transferred support from other radical Palestinians to the mainstream Palestine Liberation Organization. Recognizing the change in Libyan behavior, Britain has sent an ambassador back to the Libyan capital. US oil company executives have been allowed to tour old property in Libya. A State Department provision barring the use of a US passport to travel to Libya is under ''active review,'' Reeker says.

US officials also are considering taking Libya off a State Department list of terrorist-sponsoring states. That would ease the way for US trade sanctions against Libya to be lifted if the trial proceeds smoothly and Gadhafi compensates families of the Pan Am victims. ''I think we can expect that Libya's reintegration into the international community will continue, whether we like it or not, so long as Libya avoids new terrorism or blatant challenges to the international order,'' Ronald Neumann, deputy assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, told the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.

US officials note that leaders of countries and groups responsible for heinous acts are rarely subjected to personal punishment. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is now regarded as a peacemaker and the same diplomatic rehabilitation is likely for Syrian President Hafez Assad.

Those spending another difficult holiday season without their relatives might never accept Gadhafi's return to the fold, however, especially if they continue to believe that important information has been denied to them. ''We totally caved in,'' Wolfe says.

This Lockerbie bomber nonsense shows US senators have lost the plot

The US Senate's conspiracy theory about Megrahi shows just how ignorant it is of British politics, writes Alan Cochrane.

It is always uncomfortable to be attacked by a supposed friend, all the more so when the onslaught is so unreasonable and wrong-headed. However, the main criticism that must be levelled against the report compiled by four US senators on the circumstances surrounding the release of the Lockerbie bomber is that it is naive – stunningly and embarrassingly so.

What appears to have happened is that Senators Robert Menéndez, Frank Lautenberg, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand decided from the "off" that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was freed as a result of base political, diplomatic, but above all commercial, motives.

They further believed that the UK Government had, for a combination of these disreputable reasons, lent on the devolved administration of Alex Salmond in Edinburgh to release the mass murderer.

The senators decided to produce a report to "prove" their theory and, lo and behold, that is precisely what it came up with.

Along with others who should know better, they refuse to believe that a separatist SNP administration in Edinburgh would never give in to pressure from the unionist UK government in London over a wholly devolved issue, such as the Scottish justice system.

As a result, the senators produced a very poor piece of work that demonstrates the incredible ignorance evinced by these four conspiracy-theorists about how politics and governance works in this country, a not at all unusual state of affairs for American politicians' knowledge about what they would call foreign parts.

Scotland's First Minister and Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Minister, have said repeatedly that Megrahi was freed on compassionate grounds because Mr MacAskill had been told by medical experts that he was suffering from terminal cancer and had only three months to live. For the record, I should repeat at this juncture that I supported that decision. That that prognosis was spectacularly wrong has, sadly, been proved by the passage of 16 months since his release.

It is not difficult to understand the anger and hurt of the relatives of those killed, many of whom are constituents of the senators.

However, the cause of the bereaved would have been served better had the senators steered clear of this elaborate conspiracy theory.

Time and time again, their 58-page report points the finger at the UK government.

For instance: "The UK government played a direct, critical role in al-Megrahi's release"; " … evidence suggests that UK officials pressured Scotland to facilitate al-Megrahi's release"; " … it would not be surprising that the Scottish government would be susceptible to pressure from the UK government."

Entitled "Justice Undone", the report charts what it sees as a series of suspicious meetings between British politicians – including Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – diplomats and businessmen, all hell-bent on securing a massive oil deal for BP, and Libyan officials. Not surprisingly, given his "non-person" status in the US over the Gulf oil spill, BP chairman Tony Hayward is given a walk-on part in all of this jiggery-pokery. The senators conclude that the UK Government knew that, in order to maintain commercial relations with Libya, "it had to give in to political demands".

"The threat of commercial warfare was a motivating factor", it adds.

The senators may be on firmer ground over their challenging of the medical evidence used as the basis for Megrahi's release. But even here they cannot resist sketching out an elaborate plot, involving Dr Andrew Fraser, the senior doctor at the Scottish Prison Service – accusing him of attending "political meetings" that "may have influenced his decision".

They also come up with a frankly spurious list of supposed powers that the UK Government could have used to stop Megrahi being freed and also claim that another reason for freeing the bomber was pressure from the Qataris who were poised to take over Sainsbury's, which the senators say is a "Scottish food producer". News to me!

Where the senators will find many supporters, however, is in their final conclusion – namely that the release was a straightforward bit of grandstanding: "The compassionate release option allowed First Minister Salmond to inject Scotland on the international stage."

The sad fact remains that this report is nothing more than supposition dressed up as fact, opinion masquerading as truth.

It has unleashed a great deal of Brit-bashing, too. That is unfortunate but is as nothing when compared to the grief of the bereaved families. Their cause has not been aided by this nonsense of a report.

Given that he is still alive more than a year later proves that the release of this mass murderer may well have been a mistake. But he was released on compassionate, not commercial, grounds.

[From an opinion piece on the website of the Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph by the paper's Scottish Editor.]

British PM agrees to see US senators on Lockerbie

[This is the headline over an Agence France Presse news agency report. It reads in part:]

British Prime Minister David Cameron has agreed to meet during his visit to Washington with four US senators angry over the Lockerbie bomber's release, his spokesman said Tuesday.

The British embassy in the US capital had originally said Cameron would not have time to meet the lawmakers as he had a full schedule, and would instead ask British Ambassador Nigel Sheinwald to see them.

But his spokesman later said the prime minister, on his first visit to Washington since taking office in May, had changed his plans and would invite the senators for a discussion later Tuesday at the British ambassador's residence.

"The prime minister recognises the strength of feeling and knows how important it is to reassure the families of the victims," said the spokesman.

"We are happy to see them face to face and find time in the diary."

Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey wrote a letter to Cameron Monday asking to meet with him to discuss the Lockerbie case. (...)

Menendez earlier described Cameron's initial refusal to meet with him and his fellow senators as "disappointing", adding that "it is critical for us to get the full story from the British government."

[Well, it certainly didn't take long for this British poodle to see the wisdom of complying with his US master's wishes.

The BBC News report on the Prime Minister's speedy volte face can be read here.]

US tells Libya rebels: Capture the Lockerbie bomber for us

[This is the headline over a report published today on the Mail Online website. It reads in part:]

A dramatic mission to capture the freed Lockerbie bomber from Libya and return him to face justice in the United States was revealed last night.

Under a secret deal between Barack Obama and Libyan rebel leaders, Abdelbaset Al Megrahi would be detained by opposition troops and then handed over to US Special Forces.

Senior Congressional sources in Washington have disclosed to The Mail on Sunday that President Obama has told the Libyan rebels through intermediaries that a condition of continued support from the US is that they must hand over Megrahi if they enter Tripoli.

The mission would involve Megrahi being flown to a neutral Arab country by US Special Forces once he is handed over by the rebels, and then on to America to face trial. [RB: Megrahi has already faced trial and been convicted -- wrongly, in my view -- in a process supported by the United States. He could not be tried again in the USA unless Federal Law were changed to allow it.] British SAS soldiers are unlikely to be directly involved in the operation.

The plan to capture the bomber came after US Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez met Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder last week to demand the US ‘continue working to return Abdelbaset Al Megrahi to prison’.

Mr Menendez has amended a Congressional Bill authorising the continued use of force in Libya to include a paragraph ordering ‘the continuation of Federal investigations into the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103’.

Congressional sources disclosed that the US will ‘grab’ Megrahi as soon as they can.

US: No plans to tie Libya aid to Lockerbie case

[This is the headline over a report issued today by The Associated Press news agency. It reads in part:]

The Obama administration said Wednesday it will continue to press Libyan rebels to review the case of the convicted Lockerbie bomber but ruled out making the transfer of frozen Gadhafi regime assets contingent on his return to prison.

Getting the money to the opposition is a higher initial priority than handling the case of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the State Department said. (...)

Some lawmakers, including Clinton's former Senate colleague, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer have called on the Obama administration to withhold U.S. support for the rebels until Megrahi is jailed and independently examined by medical professionals to determine his health status. Other lawmakers and at least one Republican presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, have urged the administration to demand that the opposition arrest and extradite al-Megrahi.

But [State Department spokeswoman Victoria] Nuland said that the Libyan opposition's most important tasks are finishing its apparent victory over Gadhafi, restoring stability and starting a democratic transition. She said the administration would keep up pressure over the al-Megrahi case but would not link it to the return of assets. She also noted that it was Gadhafi, not his foes, who had treated al-Megrahi as a hero.

"We all have to take a hard line, and we have been, on Megrahi and anybody else who has blood on their hands from the Lockerbie bombing, and we will continue to do so," she told reporters.

"We need to give the TNC a chance to do job one, which is to finish the job of ousting Gadhafi and his regime; begin the job of establishing Libya on a democratic path," Nuland said. "And we are very gratified by the fact that they have made clear that they are willing to look into this. We will continue to talk to them about it, and we will certainly make sure that Congress's views are conveyed."

The opposition has pledged to look at the handling of the al-Megrahi case once it has established itself as a fully functioning government.

That is apparently not soon enough for some. (...)

New York's other senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, and New Jersey Sens Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg have also made the al-Megrahi case an issue.

Alex Salmond attacks senator for Megrahi deal 'insinuation'

[This is the headline over The Scotsman's report on the First Minister's latest letter to Senator Menendez. The following are excerpts:]

The transatlantic row over the Lockerbie bomber has intensified after Alex Salmond accused a US senator of attempting to "insinuate" a false link between his release and a lobbying campaign by BP, and US politicians claimed the Scottish investigations into the affair had been "limited".

In an angry letter to Senator Robert Menendez yesterday, the First Minister defended his decision to snub a US Senate inquiry into the affair as he restated his denial that the decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi had been linked to a lucrative Libyan oil deal.

His comments came as two US politicians sent a terse missive to the Scottish Government, complaining that receiving information in writing was not an "adequate replacement" for witnesses appearing in person and claiming that the Scottish Parliamentary inquest into the compassionate release had not been carried out by an independent investigator and had therefore been restricted. (...)

Mr Salmond said that decision had been made "on principle rather than on any issue of practicality" and claimed the most appropriate way for him to provide information to the senators was in writing.

He added: "It is difficult to envisage circumstances in which serving members of the US government would agree to appear as witnesses in hearings or inquiries held by the legislature of another country."

Mr Salmond reiterated his insistence there was no evidence of a link between the release and the prisoner transfer agreement, signed by the UK and Libyan governments shortly before BP reached an oil exploration deal with the African country.

"It was with concern I watched you attempt to insinuate such a link on BBC Newsnight on 30 July by citing a letter from Conservative Party peer Lord Trefgarne, the chair of the Libyan British Business Council, to justice secretary MacAskill last year," he wrote. "This was one of approximately one thousand representations received by the Scottish Government last year." [Note by RB: The Scotsman, for some reason, chooses not to quote the sentences which immediately follow: 'You have this letter because the Scottish Government published this last year as part of our comprehensive issue of documentation related to the decision. That being the case, you must also have seen the reply from Mr MacAskill, also published, which stated that his decisions would be "based on judicial grounds alone and economic and political considerations have no part in the process". In order to avoid any suggestion of misrepresentation, I trust that you will include that fact in future references.']

He added: "Please do not ascribe to the Scottish Government economic or commercial motives for this decision when there is no evidence whatsoever for such a claim." (...)

Later a Holyrood spokesman said questions over the justice committee's handling of the case were not for the First Minister to address.

[The same newspaper has an editorial on the issue. It reads as follows:]

It is clear from Alex Salmond's latest letter to US Senator Robert Menendez that the First Minister is, understandably, beginning to lose patience with the persistent demands and allegations levelled at Scotland from across the Atlantic Ocean.

In his latest missive Mr Salmond is fully justified in taking Senator Menendez to task over the claims the Scottish government released Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to pave the way for the prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) between the UK government and Libya for which the oil company BP lobbied.

As the First Minister rightly points out, there has never been any evidence the Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill took his decision to free Megrahi on compassionate grounds as part of this deal and the insinuation by the Senator in a recent interview that this was the case casts an unwarranted slur on the reputation of the Holyrood government and Scottish justice.

And as if these exchanges were not enough, the water was further muddied last night by another letter, addressed to the Scottish government, from Senator Menendez and his Senatorial colleague Frank Lautenberg which questioned the conduct of an inquiry by the Scottish parliament into the Lockerbie affair.

In response the Scottish government was right to point out that this latest Senate salvo is constitutionally illiterate. Scotland has a separation of powers between the executive arm of government and the elected body to which it is answerable. Just like America.

These latest exchanges have been sparked by the continuing controversy over what happened on that terrible night over Lockerbie in 1988: who was responsible; whether the right man was convicted; and if the PTA agreed by the UK government was linked to BP's bid for business in Libya, once held responsible for bringing down Pan Am 103, but brought into the international fold over the past decade.

In their determination to keep the issue alive - in an election period for them - the Senators are seeing matters from a narrow, US-centric, perspective and conveniently ignoring the doubts over their own country's involvement in the wider Lockerbie story.

There are still questions over the US's warship's downing of an Iran Air A300 Airbus in July 1988 in which 290 passengers were killed, and whether the supposedly retaliatory bombing of Pan Am 103 was the responsibility of Palestinian terrorists linked to Syria, and not Libyans as the US subsequently claimed.

If the Senators are serious in their search for the truth behind the Lockerbie tragedy then, with the same self-proclaimed objective of establishing that truth objectively from evidence, they might care to look a little deeper at the involvement of their own country.

But if, as we suspect, they are not interested in the wider issue and are using the deaths of hundreds of innocent people for partisan electoral purposes then the transatlantic flow of letters from Washington should cease.

In short, a period of silence from Senator Menendez and his colleagues would be welcome.

[The Herald's report, headlined "War of words escalates as Salmond rebukes US senator" can be read here.

The CNN website has a report on the news conference held yesterday by Senators Lautenberg and Menendez. I draw attention to it because of the readers' comments that follow the story. Could it be that the senatorial grandstanding is beginning to backfire even in the United States?

A further report on the CNN website now deals with the First Minister's letter to Senator Menendez.]

Salmond defends the early release of Megrahi

The head of Scotland's government said Wednesday that he stands by his country's decision a year ago to release a man convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing from prison on compassionate grounds despite new questions about his prognosis.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said in an interview with The Associated Press that "everything we've done on the Lockerbie case over the last 20 years...has been done following the precepts of Scottish jurisdiction and Scots law." (...)

He said his government clearly stated, in announcing its decision to release al-Megrahi, that "this is an estimate, that Mr Megrahi may live shorter than three months, he may live longer than three months."

"Everybody knows from their own experience of friends and family that it's extraordinarily difficult to be precise over the exact term of life of somebody with a terminal illness," Salmond said. "Our doctors made a reasonable estimate at the time, and our ministers followed that medical advice."

He spoke to the AP in Oslo, Norway, where he was attending bilateral meetings on economic and energy ties between Scotland and the oil-rich Nordic country.

Scotland will not seek the return of al-Megrahi, Salmond said, noting that, in past instances, prisoners released on compassionate grounds were not returned to prison even if they lived longer than expected.

Last week, four Democratic US senators — Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, of New York, and Bob Menendez and Frank Lautenberg, of New Jersey — sent a letter to Salmond asking that al-Megrahi's full medical records be disclosed. (...)

"Clearly, we've made the point that the Scottish government...is not answerable to the United States Senate, nor is the American government answerable to the Scottish Parliament," Salmond said. "But we've tried to co-operate to answer all of the questions."

He said he'd responded to the letter, but that there was no more information to share since Scotland has "already published, and did last year, all relevant information because we have nothing to fear from the scrutiny and from the examination of anybody, domestically or internationally."

"The point I've made is that there's only one medical report" that informed Scotland's decision, he said.

That report — by Scottish Prison Service's medical chief, Andrew Fraser — shows Fraser was advised by four specialists at the time of al-Megrahi's release. The report describes the three-month prognosis for al-Megrahi as "reasonable," but confirms that none of those consulted ruled out that al-Megrahi might live longer.

Salmond categorically denied allegations that any outside influence — such as claims that oil giant BP pressured Scotland to free al-Megrahi so it could win access to Libyan oil reserves — affected Scotland's decision.

[From a report by The Associated Press news agency on the website of The Canadian Press.]

Clinton to look into senators' request on BP, Libya

[This is the headline over a report on the website of the news agency Reuters. It reads in part:]

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday she would look into a request by US lawmakers that the State Department investigate whether oil company BP plc had a hand in the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi.

According to media reports, London-based oil company BP lobbied the British government to support the prison transfer, which may have encouraged Libya to finalize an offshore drilling deal with BP. (...)

"I have received the letter and we will obviously look into it," Clinton said in response to a reporter's question, referring to a letter from Democratic Senators Robert Menendez, Frank Lautenberg, Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer.

[This story also features in Thursday's edition of The Guardian, where Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is quoted as saying: "It is almost too disgusting to fathom that BP had a possible role in securing the release of the Lockerbie terrorist in return for an oil drilling deal."

The Herald also has a report in which Sen Schumer is quoted: “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it just might be a corrupt deal between BP, the British Government and Libya.”

The Aljazeera news website also features a report.]

Sens to State Dept: Push UK on Lockerbie bomber

[This is the headline over an Associated Press news report just published on the CBS3 website. It reads in part:]

Their own request denied, four US senators are pressuring the State Department to push Britain to investigate the circumstances of last year's release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie airliner bombing. (...)

Democrats Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer of New York and Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey requested the investigation in a July 7 letter to the UK's ambassador to the US.

"The decision by the Scottish government to reject our request to reinvestigate the decision to release this terrorist raises more suspicions as to whether there was a rotten deal between the United Kingdom and the Libya government," Schumer said Monday. "So we're calling on the State Department to put a full-court press on the United Kingdom to return this terrorist to prison."

In his response to the senators, British Ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald said due process was followed.

"The Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament conducted an inquiry into Mr Megrahi's release earlier this year and concluded that the Scottish Executive's consideration of the case took place in accordance with normal good practice," Sheinwald said.

State Department spokesman PJ Crowley could not say if Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had received the letter from the senators seeking the investigation but said the US continues to watch the situation with Megrahi closely.

"We haven't changed our view. We think that the decision to release Mr. Megrahi last summer was a mistake," he told reporters in Washington.

"There was an expectation from last August that Mr. Megrahi had only a few months to live. We've been on the Megrahi watch since that time," Crowley said. "Every day that he lives as a free man, we think is an affront to the families of and victims of Pan Am 103."

Call for Megrahi to have 'open door' to Scotland

[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of Scotland on Sunday. It reads as follows:]

Supporters of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi say he should be allowed to return to Scotland to avoid being extradited to the United States.

The Justice for Megrahi group is calling on the Scottish Government to offer him an "open door" after American senators declared last week that they hoped to persuade Libyan rebels to hand him over if they gain control of the country.

Megrahi's supporters say the Scottish Government should pre-empt such a plan by bringing him back to Scotland to prevent a "diplomatic disaster".

Robert Forrester, of the Justice for Megrahi group, wrote: "It is now of vital importance that the Scottish authorities at least offer Mr al-Megrahi an open door through which to escape his current circumstances if he wishes to do so, not least because so many profound doubts exist over his 2001 conviction."

His comments come after US politicians stepped up their war of words over Megrahi's release after TV images of the bomber were broadcast at a pro-Gaddafi event in Libya last week.

Democrat Senator Robert Menendez said he hoped to persuade a new Libyan government "to extradite Mr al-Megrahi to the United States to pay for his crimes".

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "East Renfrewshire Council, as the supervising local authority, is responsible for monitoring al-Megrahi's release licence, and the council has been able to maintain regular contact with Mr al-Megrahi during the recent conflict in Libya."

[The same newspaper publishes a long article by Eddie Barnes headlined As the anniversary of the Lockerbie bomber's release looms are we any closer to solving the riddle? This focusses on the release of Megrahi and the medical evidence that underpinned it. There are extensive quotes from representatives of US relatives of Pan Am 103 victims but, strangely enough, none from UK relatives whose attitude has always been markedly different. The article does at least recognise that there are doubts about the Megrahi conviction in the following passage:]

Under pressure once again, MacAskill last week repeated the now familiar words he had used two years ago when he told the world that the man found guilty of Britain's worst terrorist atrocity could pack his bags and go home. Megrahi was suffering from a terminal illness; his fate was in the hands of a higher power; the Scottish Government had acted in good faith - and not with reference to any "deals in the desert".

And while MacAskill will find himself under greater pressure, it may be that the focus moves away from the decision to set him free to the decision to convict him in the first place. Last week, Salmond repeated his pledge to publish a confidential report, compiled by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which sets out its reasons for sending Megrahi's conviction back to the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh.

If published, the report, which was locked away after Megrahi dropped his appeal, is likely to put fresh scrutiny on his involvement in the bombing. (...)

Inquiries by Scottish prosecutors remain "ongoing". The Crown Office is examining new evidence to establish whether it can retry Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, Megrahi's co-accused who was found not guilty at the Camp Zeist trial in 2001. Prosecutors are re-examining evidence to see whether it is strong enough to invoke the new double jeopardy law, which allows prosecutors to try someone twice for the same offence.

Meanwhile, US Senators are hoping to use the Libyan revolution to spirit Megrahi back out of Libya to the US. Having watched Megrahi on the TV, Democrat Senator Robert Menendez said last week: "I will continue to work to ensure that any new government in Libya co-operates with efforts to extradite Mr al-Megrahi to the United States to pay for his crimes."

Menendez and veteran fellow Democrat Frank Lautenberg have written to Hillary Clinton urging her to act. As we report today, the Justice for Megrahi group - which insists he is innocent - are calling on the SNP Government to offer Megrahi the option of returning to Scotland if he wishes to avoid what they describe as the threat of his "rendition" to the US. Robert Forrester, the secretary of the group, says: "It is now of vital importance that the Scottish authorities at least offer Mr al-Megrahi an open door through which to escape his current circumstances if he wishes to do so, not least because so many profound doubts exist over his 2001 conviction."

Such a move would be seen as the ultimate betrayal by families in the US, however, many of whom - such as [Frank] Duggan [President of Victims of Pan Am 103 Inc] - believe 100 per cent in Megrahi's guilt, and view those who consider him innocent as hopelessly naive. As he approaches a second anniversary which none of them ever dreamed of experiencing, Duggan's view of matters is understandably cynical. "There is no credible medical evidence. So the conclusion is that the man was let go for what were diplomatic, commercial and political reasons," he says. It may also be a case that a very sick man is clinging on to life, now that he has something to live for. If he continues to do so, he may finally see the riddle of his life finally brought to light.

The Lockerbie Conspiracy

[This is the headline over a long article by Alex Massie in his blog on the website of The Spectator. It reads in part:]

First things first: it is extremely inconvenient, even embarrassing, that Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi is still alive nearly a year after he was released from Greenock Prison on the grounds that he was believed to have not much more, and perhaps fewer, than three months to live. Nevertheless, the fact that he has lived longer than expected does not advance or give any greater credence to the notion that there was some conspiracy designed to free him come what may and regardless of any other considerations.

Nor is there any evidence, despite recent press reports, that BP (everyone's favourite whipping boy now) played any role in Kenny MacAskill's decision to send him back to Libya. One may reasonably think, as the British government does, that MacAskill's decision was a mistake but that does not mean that, as matters were understood at the time, the Justice Secretary was either wrong or acting on behalf of other interests.

I'd go further: the fact that Megrahi is still alive does not enhance conspiracy theories, it makes them even less probable than their previous improbability suggested. But, wait, there's an oil company "involved"! And it's BP! QED!

There are two seperate issues that, unfortunately, continue to be conflated by people who ought to know better. Unsurprisingly this company includes several members of the United States Senate whose grandstanding is equalled only by their ignorance. Senators Schumer, Gillibrand, Lautenberg and Menendez have written to Hillary Clinton demanding some kind of pointless investigation into "links" between BP and the decision to release Megrahi.

Unfortunately their request is predicated upon nonsense and, for that matter, riddled with errors. Among them:

1. No "Scottish court" ordered that Megrahi be released. It was a matter for the Justice Secretary and him alone.

2. The prognosis given by Karel Sikora and the other doctors paid by the Libyan government played no part in MacAskill's decision. He never saw Sikora's report. The decision was made on the basis of reports compiled by Dr Andrew Fraser, the senior doctor in the Scottish Prison Service. These drew on the findings of at least two other independent consultants.

3. If BP really was lobbying the British government for Megrahi's "release" it was lobbying the wrong people since the British government did not have competence in this matter. Again, and evidently this still needs to be spelt out, London could no more approve Megrahi's release than could Timbuktu. (...)

John F Burns is a great journalist but the opening paragraph of his most recent New York Times report helps demonstrate why so many people remain so confused:

"The oil giant BP faced a new furor on Thursday as it confirmed that it had lobbied the British government to conclude a prisoner-transfer agreement that the Libyan government wanted to secure the release of the only person ever convicted for the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing over Scotland, which killed 270 people, most of them Americans."

But a Prisoner Transfer Agreement says nothing about releasing prisoners. On the contrary it is, as the name suggests, an agreement about transferring inmates from prison in one jurisdiction to prison in another. That is, even the Libyans weren't lobbying for Megrahi's release. They merely wanted him to be eligible to be transferred to a Libyan gaol where he could serve the rest of his sentence.

So what do we have here? Let's review the matter one more time:

1. Libya and the UK wanted to sign a PTA as part of the normalisation of relations between the two countries.

2. Libya made it clear to BP that a PTA would help BP's commercial interests in the Gulf of Sidra.

3. BP also pointed out to HMG (Her Majesty's Government) that signing the PTA would be very useful.

4. The Scottish Government was keen to exclude Megrahi from the terms of any such agreement.

5. The Libyans told London that it would be absurd to have a PTA that excluded the only high-profile Libyan in British custody.

6. Despite Edinburgh's concerns, London came around to agreeing with the Libyans and so, when signed, the PTA contained no clause excluding Megrahi from its provisions.

7. Signing the PTA most probably did help BP's commercial interests in Libya. Then again, BP's initial deal with Libya was signed in 2007 - well before any of the Megrahi business came to a head and well before there could be any consideration of releasing him.

8. So what if BP did benefit? The existence of the PTA did nothing to improve Megrahi's chances of being released. (Here I would note that Edinburgh's desire for a Megrahi Exception made little sense since the decision on his future would, as it always had been, remain a matter for Edinburgh. London gave Tripoli something Tripoli wanted badly but London did not have to give up anything in return since, again, what Tripoli wanted was not in London's gift.)

9. Libya made an application to the Scottish Government asking that Megrahi be transferred to serve the remainder of his sentence in a Libyan prison.

10. The Scottish Government considered this application and then, based in part upon its understanding that assurances had been given to the United States that Megrahi would serve his entire sentence in Scotland, rejected Libya's application.

11. Again, signing a PTA with Libya - which London was keen to do - is an entirely seperate issue from the decision to free Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

12. We are now in the odd position that those who think there was a conspiracy need Megrahi to live for years while those who think MacAskill made the decision honestly would be relieved if he died next week.

13. Not a single credible report has emerged disputing that MacAskill made his decision according to the medical facts as he saw and understood them at the time.

14. The fact that Megrahi has "outperformed" medical expectations says much more about medical science than it does about Kenny MacAskill.

15. If much of the press reporting is to be given credence we are asked to suppose that MacAskill would have released Megrahi come what may. This, of course, is because of BP and HMG and all the rest of it. But for this to be true we have to believe that if the doctors had said Megrahi's prostate cancer was not so serious and he'd live for another year at least MacAskill would have said, Well that doesn't matter I'm going to release him anyway and so what if this rides roughshod over both established practice and the law? I want to be a Big Boy playing on the big stage. I suggest that this is implausible.

16. For there to be a conspiracy we need to believe that two (three if you include Libya) jurisdictions were involved and that this included several government departments and the Scottish Prison Service and at least two independent consultants. And BP of course. Again, I suggest that this is not credible. For a conspiracy to have any credence you need to believe that Edinburgh was determined to release Megrahi at any or all costs. There is precisely zero evidence to support this notion.

None of this means there aren't perfectly good grounds upon which to oppose or criticise MacAskill's decision. Good people may disagree in good faith upon this question. But that's a long way from supposing that there was some conspiracy or that the medical evidence was fabricated or that BP was secretly running the entire show.

This blog's Lockerbie archive is here and, more or less, I stand by pretty much everything I wrote nearly a year ago. Megrahi's survival is inconvenient and, yes, embarrassing but that doesn't mean there was any conspiracy to release him. Nor does it in and of itself suggest that MacAskill was acting in anything other than good faith at any point in proceedings.

Yet, again, for there to have been a conspiracy you need to believe that if the doctors had told MacAskill that Megrahi would live for another year he'd have been released anyway. Never mind that, as I understand it, this would have been beyond his purview it makes no sense even if you want to believe in it.

You can certainly argue that convicted terrorists should never be released but that's an entirely different question. But cock-up - or rather the vagaries of medical prognosis - is a likelier explanation of all this than conspiracy not least because there is precisely no evidence of there being any conspiracy.

Sheinwald: mistake to free Lockerbie bomber

[What follows is an Agence France Presse news agency report:]

The government believes that the decision by Scotland to free the Lockerbie bomber was a mistake, London's envoy to the United States said Thursday.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi is the only person convicted of the 1988 bombing of a US Pan Am jumbo jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which left 270 people dead.

"The new British government is clear that Megrahi's release was a mistake," ambassador Nigel Sheinwald said, stressing that under the country's laws power over justice issues have been devolved to Scotland.

Megrahi was released from jail in Scottish prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds because he was said to be suffering from terminal cancer and had only three months to live. Reports have now emerged that he could live at least another 10 years.

On Tuesday, four US senators also called for an inquiry into allegations that energy giant BP lobbied the British government to free Megrahi in order to protect a lucrative oil deal with Libya.

[The ambassador to Washington DC, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, was Foreign Policy and Defence Adviser to the prime minister, Tony Blair, from 2003 to 2007. It is a matter for mild cynical amusement that Sheinwald was present at, and intimately involved in, the negotiation of the deal in the desert which was intended to pave the way for Abdelbaset Megrahi's early repatriation under a prisoner transfer agreement. The UK negotiators did not realise that the power to allow transfer would rest, not with the UK but with the Scottish, Government. Or if the negotiators did realise this, they signally failed to inform their Libyan counterparts, to the disgust of the latter when they discovered what the true position was.

There is a related long report on the Channel 4 News website and another one on The Guardian website. This also contains a clarification of Professor Karol Sikora's views on Megrahi's survival prospects:]

New York Democrat senators Frank Lautenberg, Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer and New Jersey Democrat Senator Robert Menendez called for an inquiry, after reports that a cancer expert, who backed the three-month prognosis, now believed Megrahi could live for 10 or 20 years.

But yesterday, Professor Karol Sikora, medical director of CancerPartners UK, said his words were taken out of context, and that the chances of Megrahi surviving for a decade were "less than 1%".

He said: "There was a greater than 50% chance, in my opinion, that he would die within the first three months then gradually as you go along the chances get less and less.

"So the chances of living 10 years is less than 1%, something like that."

First Minister's letter to US Senators

[What follows is the text of the First Minister's most recent letter to Senators Menendez, Lautenberg, Gillibrand and Schumer.]

Thank you for your letters of 19 and 20 August 2010.

Your letter of 19 August attempts to suggest that there is circumstantial evidence that commercial interests played a role in the release of Al-Megrahi. This seems to be a considerable weakening of your original position, but is still totally wrong. There is no evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, that links decisions made by the Scottish Government to commercial interests. Indeed, the substantial evidence that does exist shows that the Scottish Government specifically rejected any attempt to bring commercial or business considerations into the decision-making process on compassionate release, and stated that decisions would be based on judicial grounds alone.

I am also concerned that, in your letter of 20 August, you once again quote from letters published by the Scottish Government setting out the representations that were made to us, without drawing attention to the responses which make clear that commercial considerations would play no part in the decision-making process. To then accuse the Scottish Government of selectively publishing correspondence, when it is you who are selectively quoting from material published proactively by the Scottish Government, significantly undermines your credibility.

The evidence of commercial influence that does exist relates to the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) that the UK Government signed with Libya. Indeed, you quote Saif Gaddaffi as publicly commenting that the commercial issues were related to the PTA.

As I highlighted in my letter of 2 August, it was the Scottish Government, on 7 June 2007, which first drew attention to the UK Government's negotiations with the Libyan Government, highlighting our strong opposition to them. I asked you, in my letter of 15 August, for copies of any public comments on this important issue which you may have made at the time, either individually or collectively. It appears that when the Scottish Government was using every means at its disposal to oppose the PTA between the UK and Libya, you were silent.

You refer to extensive correspondence between the Scottish and UK Governments regarding the PTA. Once again, however, you fail to mention that this shows the Scottish Government consistently opposing the signing of any PTA unless it specifically excluded Al-Megrahi. This, and the fact that the application for prisoner transfer was rejected, fatally undermines your line of argument.

You refer to comments that the Scottish Government would have to deal with the consequences of the UK's decision not to exclude Al-Megrahi from the PTA with Libya. This is a statement of fact. The UK Government had gone against our wishes and left the Scottish Government to deal with any application for prisoner transfer that was submitted, a situation that it is clear we were and are very unhappy with. You suggest that it is uncertain how the Scottish Government dealt with those consequences. This is simply not true. The consideration and rejection of the prisoner transfer application are matters of public record and to pretend otherwise, as you attempt to do, appears very contrived.

Your letter of 19 August goes on to conflate the process of application for prisoner transfer with the quite separate process of applying for compassionate release. I have explained these separate processes at some length in our previous correspondence. It is of great concern that, despite these explanations, you seem unable or unwilling to understand the nature of these separate legal processes.

On some of the points of detail you raise, I would note that the only redaction from the letter of 22 June to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office was the name of the UK Government official to whom it was addressed. Permission to publish this name has been refused by the UK Government and, in any event, has absolutely no bearing on the facts of the matter. In the 16 July 2009 letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice to the UK Foreign Secretary, the only passage that has been redacted is due to the US Government withholding permission to release material relating to it. Finally, the letter from the Qatari Minister which was attached to correspondence from the Qatari Embassy in London dated 31 July 2009 is available on the Scottish Government website. The letter from Khalid Bin Mohamed al-Attiyah, dated 17 July 2009, was also received direct and therefore appears twice in the correspondence on the website.

Given the consistent and compelling information I have now provided, I would ask you to confirm you accept that:

The Scottish Government had no contact with BP in relation to decisions made about Al-Megrahi; The Scottish Government consistently opposed the signing of a PTA between the UK and Libyan Governments unless Al-Megrahi was excluded; and The Scottish Government made the decision on compassionate release on judicial grounds alone and made this clear to those who made representations to us.

If you are not able to accept these irrefutable and well-evidenced facts, which I have set out clearly in our correspondence and are supported by extensive documentation, it calls into question your ability to conduct any credible and impartial investigation into these matters.

I am aware that staff from Senator Menendez's office have been in contact with my office to try to arrange meetings with Scottish Government Ministers and officials. As I have said previously, the Scottish Government has nothing to hide and nothing to fear from any properly constituted inquiry, but the Scottish Government is rightly accountable to the Scottish Parliament and not to the US Senate. Nevertheless, as a matter of courtesy, I would be willing to make appropriate officials available to meet staff from your offices should they decide to visit Scotland. The purpose of any such meeting would be to provide whatever further background information may be helpful to your understanding of these matters. Officials would not be giving evidence in any formal context.

There are other points of detail in your 19 August 2010 letter, but none of these raises any new issues of substance or challenge the view that the decisions the Scottish Government made in relation to Al-Megrahi were made with integrity and according to the due process of Scots Law.

I believe that the Scottish Government has given every assistance to you and to the Foreign Relations Committee on this matter and, as noted above, I am content to offer the courtesy of an official level meeting if staff from your offices visit Scotland. However, as your recent letters raise no new issues of substance, I am now drawing a line under this correspondence.

Alex Salmond

Challenge to senators to support wide-ranging Lockerbie inquiry

[What appears below is the full text of the letter sent by Robert Forrester on behalf of the Justice for Megrahi campaign to Senators Gillibrand, Lautenberg, Menendez and Schumer.]

You may be aware that group of signatories, many of international repute, have lobbied both the United Nations Organisation General Assembly (September 2009) and more recently the Scottish Government (July 2010) in an effort to establish a thorough, all encompassing and open public inquiry, which would cover all matters relating to: the investigation into the downing of Pan Am flight 103 (1988), the Kamp van Zeist trail of Mr Al-Megrahi and Mr Fhimah, the acquittal of Mr Fhimah and the conviction of Mr Al-Megrahi (2001), and the eventual release of Mr Al-Megrahi (2009). The petition to the Scottish Government received the endorsement of seventeen signatories (see at the end: the list of signatories to the letter sent to the Scottish Government last week followed by a copy of the UN petition).

For your convenience, this link will provide you with a report on the Scottish letter and a link to the letter itself. The letter was sent both to First Minister, Alex Salmond, and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill:

http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2045/Exclusive%3A_Salmond_pressed_to_instigate_inquiry_into_Pan_Am_103_by_international_coalition_including_Tutu%2C_Chomsky%2C_Dalyell%2C_Black_and_Swire.html

In light of recent developments taking place in Washington, signatories to the Scottish Government letter wish to extend an invitation to members of the Senate of the United States of America to add their support to lobbying the Scottish Government for an inquiry by becoming signatories to the letter themselves.

We all deeply sympathise with the position of those bereaved families and friends resultant from the 103 tragedy who are satisfied that the Zeist conviction of Mr Al-Megrahi was safe. Given their position, it is hardly surprising that they are outraged at his release and return to Libya. Nevertheless, on the basis of the evidence laid before their Lordships at Kamp van Zeist, it has always been our contention that Mr Al-Megrahi may have been a victim of a gross miscarriage of justice. This view is clearly supported by the fact that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) referred the case to the Court of Appeal. This appeal was in progress up to a point immediately prior to Mr Al-Megrahi's release. We feel that the current focus on the circumstances surrounding Mr Al-Megrahi's release, whilst engaging in their own right, pale into insignificance if indeed there was a miscarriage of justice.

With regard to the release we too have questions. The Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) reached by Prime Minister Blair and Colonel Gaddafi appears to be in direct contravention of UN Security Council Resolution 1192. It, moreover, seems to be rendered invalid by an existing agreement between the UK and US governments, which states that the prisoner was required to serve out his sentence in Scotland. If the PTA was in violation of the aforementioned, why was outrage not expressed on both sides of the Atlantic at the time of its being signed? See this link for details:

http://i-p-o.org/Megrahi-statement-Koechler-IPO-nr-21Aug2009.htm

As it happens, and as you will be cognisant of, the PTA was not utilised in the release of Mr Al-Megrahi. He was released via due process under Scots Law by the device of Compassionate Release available the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Mr MacAskill, resulting from consideration of his medical condition. However, the following sequence of events may be worthy of investigation: Mr Al-Megrahi's appeal commences, Mr MacAskill visits Mr Al-Megrahi in Greenock gaol for a private interview, Mr Al-Megrahi drops his appeal, Mr Al-Megrahi is released and repatriated to Libya. Given that under Scots Law there is no requirement to drop an appeal to be granted Compassionate Release, many of us would like to know why this was done and what transpired during the meeting between Mr MacAskill and Mr Al-Megrahi at Greenock.

Dr Swire, in his capacity as one of those many bereaved by the tragedy over twenty-one years ago now, has already made an impassioned plea for support in his quest for justice to Senator Kerry recently. It is essential, even after the passing of so many years, to address the question marks which continue to hang over the entire Lockerbie affair. The bereaved rightfully deserved justice from Zeist in the same way that Mr Al-Megrahi rightfully expected it. However, the verdict produced such controversy that it is simply not sustainable to continue claim that it was safe because it was the one preferred by the three judges at the time. This is why we have courts of appeal and why the SCCRC referred the case to the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh. Now that this legal avenue is no longer open, it appears that the only possible recourse to addressing the doubts surrounding the issue is by means of an inquiry.

It is inappropriate in this letter to list the litany of shortcomings in both the investigation of the disaster itself and the prosecution evidence laid before the court at the subsequent trial. The criticism is copious and has long been in the public domain. Professor Robert Black (oft referred to as the ‘architect’ of Zeist) and Dr Hans Köchler (International Observer at Zeist – appointed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan) have both variously and very publicly stated views ranging from the verdict’s being a clear miscarriage of justice to one which seemed more concerned with political expediency than justice. If protestations of this calibre alone are not enough to generate an inquiry, one feels obliged to ask: what is? If ever a case were crying out for an inquiry, it is this one. Not only for the bereaved, not only for Mr Al-Megrahi but for justice itself.

High above courthouses worldwide stands statue of Justice holding scales in her left hand and in her right a sword. She is a symbol of the glue that binds together the very fabric of society. We depend on justice and her instrument, the law, to provide cohesion in our relationships. If justice loses its lustre or becomes tarnished we degenerate into a world of cynicism and chaos. Surely it is a sign of a great society if that society can reflect on its deeds and not be afraid to revisit perceived mistakes to seek redress and right wrongs where they have been committed. To have the resolve to take such action is not an admission of weakness but a sign of supreme strength.

An inquiry will no doubt bring with it embarrassment for some as it calls into question their reputations. However, if justice is regarded as a tool with which to achieve expedient results and defend human frailties by obscuring the truth, we all in a very sorry state indeed. We do not seek retribution, we seek the truth. The ghosts of Lockerbie must be laid to rest.

We hope, therefore, that you will feel able to identify with the sentiments expressed in this letter and join with us in lobbying the Scottish Government by adding your names to the list of signatories.

We all thank you for your time and attention, and look forward to hearing your response.

“They're never going to tell”

[On this date in 1990, members of President George [H W] Bush’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism (PCAST) met members of the families of UK Lockerbie victims at the US embassy in London. What follows is taken from the Wikipedia article Pan Am Flight 103:]

On 29 September 1989, President [George H W] Bush appointed Ann McLaughlin Korologos, former Secretary of Labor, as chairwoman of the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism (PCAST) to review and report on aviation security policy in the light of the sabotage of flight PA103. Oliver "Buck" Revell, the FBI's Executive Assistant Director, was assigned to advise and assist PCAST in their task. Mrs Korologos and the PCAST team (Senator Alfonse D'Amato, Senator Frank Lautenberg, Representative John Paul Hammerschmidt, Representative James Oberstar, General Thomas Richards, deputy commander of US forces in West Germany, and Edward Hidalgo, former Secretary of the US Navy) submitted their report, with its 64 recommendations, on 15 May 1990. The PCAST chairman also handed a sealed envelope to the President which was widely believed to apportion blame for the PA103 bombing. Extensively covered in The Guardian the next day, the PCAST report concluded:

"National will and the moral courage to exercise it are the ultimate means of defeating terrorism. The Commission recommends a more vigorous policy that not only pursues and punishes terrorists, but also makes state sponsors of terrorism pay a price for their actions."

Before submitting their report, the PCAST members met a group of British PA103 relatives at the US embassy in London on 12 February 1990. Twelve years later, on 11 July 2002, Scottish MP Tam Dalyell reminded the House of Commons of a controversial statement made at that 1990 embassy meeting by a PCAST member to one of the British relatives, Martin Cadman: "Your government and ours know exactly what happened. But they're never going to tell." The statement first came to public attention in the 1994 documentary film The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie and was published in both The Guardian of 29 July 1995, and a special report from Private Eye magazine entitled Lockerbie, the flight from justice May/June 2001. Dalyell asserted in Parliament that the statement had never been refuted.